Leaving Mpala

This is my last morning at Mpala... I leave in about an hour to head to Nairobi for the night. This trip really has flown by. I can't believe it has been 9 weeks already. Blair was telling me that last year when she came for 2 months it felt like forever, and then this year 3 months really felt like forever. I have not felt that at all. I definitely could have stayed awhile longer. While a project still has to be decided on, I will probably come back for 3 months next summer. And then the year after that, maybe 6 months? Dan mentioned to me the other day that he likes his grad students to stay for 6-9 months at a time (although it seems none of them do currently- the average is 3 months I think).


Yesterday, I went around with some of the local field assistants to a couple of the communities around this area. It was really interesting to see. We went to a Masaai village where everyone still lives as pastoralists. There is no road to their bomas- we were driving through the bush for a little bit. The boma consists of a couple of tiny huts made out of sticks and thatch and a pen for their goats and sheep, all circled by a ring wall of sticks to prevent the lions from getting to their livestock at night. The one family we went to see was a man and his three wives (polygamy is still very common) and something like 9 children. They herd their sheep around during the day to graze and then bring them back into the boma at night- and that is their whole livelihood. There is no toilet of any kind- they just go in the bush. Their house was a good 500 meters from the next boma, so when I say village it is more of just a community where all the members are from the same tribe, but their homes are pretty spread out.




And now for some photos: Two nights ago the elephants were up by the research center again. There was a big group of them and they broke the water pipe again to get at the water. (So we didn't have running water for most of yesterday while the pipe was fixed). One youngish one was not afraid of us at all and came right up to the research center and I got some really good pictures.











(While taking the last photo, the elephant decided I had gotten too close and acted like she was going to charge for a minute... but I ran back up onto the porch and she went back to grazing)

Grazing experiment

So for the past 5 days I have been working with Dan on this grazing experiment. It invloved laying out plots in the grass, having donkeys graze a third of them, having slashers cut a third of them and leaving the other third as controls. Then the next day we brought in cows to graze all of them. (I was excited because I kind of love donkeys). We measured the vegetation before everything, after the donkeys/slashers, and then again after the cows. So I had one full day of donkey wrangling, one full day of cow wrangling, and this morning we finished up the vegetation sampling.

Here are some photos of donkey wrangling, a donkeys and her baby in one of our plots, and my cows in one of the plots.

Less than a week left

Wow, the summer has really flown by. The undergrads I flew over with all left this morning... which means I have only 6 days left here. I can't believe how quickly 8 weeks have gone by. I will be driving down to Nairobi with Dan's wife Nancy and spending the night there before heading to the airport on Saturday. I fly back through Dubai again and get to JFK at 7:45 am next Sunday Aug 8. Then I will be taking a shuttle to the Newark airport in order to get on another plane back to Dayton, Ohio.

For my last week here, Dan and I have finally been able to start working on setting up this grazing project. We scoped out places to set up plots today. If the rain holds off and we can set up plots tomorrow, we can do vegetation sampling on Monday, and then bring in some donkeys to graze a third of the plots on Tuesday. I'm actually really excited because I kind of love donkeys.

I feel like posts are always more exciting if I include pictures, so here are some random recent ones. First we have a tree hyrax who decided to relax in some old pipes/tubing/tires by the workshop. I think they are really cute as well.

Then there are the vervet monkeys... the males literally have bright baby blue testicles, which I guess gives new meaning to the term "blue balls".

Stop Raining!

It has not stopped raining since Lisa and I got to Mpala... 6 days in a row. Which really puts a stop to researching since the roads are too bad to drive to most places, even with 4-wheel drive. So I don't know that I will actually get much done at Mpala other than relaxing and staring out at the view. It is a nice view though.

We have seen some cool animals here that we didn't see at Ol Pejeta though. First there are a lot more Grevys zebra: 35-50 as opposed to the 14 total on all of Ol Pej. Which means I actually see them in herds and not just one or two at a time, which is pretty cool.
They also have greater Kudu and tiny little dik-diks.... which I think are my favorite (aside from the zebra). They have the best name too. Their bodies are like little antelope, but their faces remind me of a mouse or a mole.

Hippos!!!

While there are apparently hippos on Ol Pejeta, we never saw one while we were there. However, there is a place on Mpala called the hippo pool where they like to go and wade, so we decided to drive by there today and see if there were any around. And there were 20 of them!

We went by the other day and there were only 2, but they must have all been hanging out today... including a cute little baby hippo.

It has rained here most of the past 5 days... so we've been doing a lot of nothing. But today it was clear enough that we decided to test the roads and see if we could make it up to the place where Lisa is going to set out tents to try to continue her experiment. Some of the roads are still bad, but we made it and saw a bunch of Grevy's zebra on the way too. I think I saw more Grevy's in one spot here than exist on all of Ol Pejeta.

Now at Mpala

Hey everyone- so I am now at Mpala. Today was "Discovery Day" and a bunch of people from the community came to hear short presentations by a lot of the researchers about the work going on here. It was a pretty impressive turn out. Even the director of KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) helicoptered in for it.

Lisa and I drove our cars over here yesterday afternoon, and luckily they both made it. My car was making weird noises along the way- especially in 4th gear- but it made it.

The last day we were at Ol Pejeta, apparently one of the herders got gored by a rhino-- which is insane. He survived, but he took a horn to the back. Luckily it just hit muscle and nothing important I think. That will be a crazy story to tell one day. Speaking of rhinos, here are a couple pictures from the first week we were here that I don't think I ever posted. It was just getting to the end of the rainy season/beginning of the dry season then, so there were still mud pools around they liked to lay in.

Also yesterday, Lisa and I saw the tiniest baby elephant ever and as we were watching it, it's mom started to charge our car. We just drove off quickly, but I feel like now I can say I have been charged by an elephant.

Baby animals!

Moving to Mpala

Lisa and I were supposed to be staying at Ol Pejeta until next Monday (July 26th), but we just found out the research center is overbook and we have to leave this Thursday (July 22) instead. So we will be moving up to Mpala on the 22nd. Lisa is a little upset because that gives her 4 less days to work on her project and try to get some more trials of her experiment done. But oh well, nothing can be done. KWS (Kenya Wildlife Service) will be coming on Tursday followed by another Earthwatch group on Monday.

The Earthwatch group that was just here for 2 weeks left yesterday morning. We got to know a few of them really well- mostly just the two guys in college, Kenny and Saagar. There was a bit of drama toward the end of the trip where Saagar felt like he was getting really sick and told his dad who freaked out and called Earthwatch and they called Geff, the guy running the trip, and asked what was going on. So the older volunteers in the group got pissed at Saagar for starting something and unneccessarily stressing out Geff. There was a confrontation at dinner time with yelling and then a fake make-up hug. But then to make things worse, a couple days later Saagar woke Geff up at 3 am saying he thought he was dying and asking to be taken to the hospital. When they got there the nurses couldn't really find anything wrong. He came back to camp the next day for a few hours and then asked to be taken to the hospital again. He had strept throat. But do you really need to spend multpile days in the hospital for that? The Earthwatch team was leaving to drive to Nairobi for their flights yesterday while he was still at the hospital so they just left without him... He came back on his own later that day to get his bags and then find a taxi to Nairobi. It was so much drama for a few days, it was like we were living in a reality show.

Chayant, the guy working on the computer program to barcode ID zebras got here Sunday night and drove around with me monday. We saw so much wildlife for one day. I will put pictures in the next post. Then yesterday Dan came to see how it was working-- turns out not very well. So Chayant is trying to work on the program and get it functioning before we leave here on Thursday. I am now also trying to go through all of my data before I leave. If there are any questions I have or Plains zebra I need identified, I need to do that with Rosemary before I go. And then I want to leave info about all my sighting for her in a useable format... but that I could always email if I don't get it done now.

The trip really feels like it is getting toward the end now that we will be leaving Ol Pejeta in 3 days. Then I will have 2 weeks at Mpala before heading home.

Chimps!

So we finally went to the chimp sanctuary on the property the other day. The earthwatch people were going, and Lisa and I hadn't been yet, so we tagged along.

Chimps are not indigenous to Kenya, but I guess Jane Goodall started this sanctuary and they were brought here to get away from all of the fighting in countries where they are from like Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. Most of them have been rescued from people trying to keep them as pets or sell them for bushmeat. They are a lot bigger than I was expecting. And so many of their mannerisms are so human-like it is really cool to watch. There is one name Max that the keeps kept telling us is "very naughty". I guess he doesn't like the crowds, so he kept running up and down the fence throwing sticks and rocks at us. We got really close, just on the other side of a tall electrified fence, but it is a little sad to see them behind a fence like that. They have a lot of acres to roam, and the fence is as much for their saftey (to keep out predators and elephants) as to keep them from escaping, but still...

We also finally went over to Ol Pejeta house (on of the places the tourists can stay) yesterday to use the pool for the first time. The house is huge and really nice. It used to be owned by a middle-eastern arms dealer who was involved in the whole Iran-contra thing... but he lost it in a gambling bet-- which I find funny and ridiculous. We didn't get to see upstairs because there are some people staying there right now, but the 2 pools and living and dining rooms are pretty sweet. If anyone wants to come visit me in Kenya one year, we should get a big group together and rent out the whole place for a week. It also felt nice to swim.

We watched the world cup final last night at Sweetwaters Lodge and then it was back to work today.

The blind elephant was right next to the research center again this morning and almost took down the clothes line again.

One of the guards was around and came out and made noise to get him to leave. Me and Lisa took pictures.

Also, yay for getting data! I gave Rosemary a bunch of photos of Plains zebra I have seen the hybrids with and she identified all of them and gave me their ID numbers today. Now I am cross checking them with the spreadsheet of all past sightings to see if a hybrid has been seen with these same Plains zebra before.

Dan is coming on Sunday again with a bunch of people to show them around.

Oh, and the Earthwatch volunteers have been here for 3 days now. There are 9 of them- several Americans, a couple British and a couple Japanese. 4 of the Americans are college students too, so it has been fun having lots of people to talk to at meals and around the campfire some nights. It is definitely more lively here now.

Good News

I have another quick update for you all- with lots of good news this time!

First, both Lisa and my cars have been fixed and are running like totally different cars. The mechanics here are great. My car used to make tons of noise (both the engine and exhaust) and now it is so quiet and runs so much smoother. Also, since Lisa's car was fixed, we went into town yesterday to deal with my phone. Unfortunately the shop where I bought mine was closed, so I could not ask them for a replacement. I did not want to leave without a working phone, though so I just bought a new one from a different provider at another shop. So I now have two Kenyan cell phones! The number of the working one is 0713 796 270 if anyone cares. The two big cell companies in Kenya are Orange (my original phone) and Safaricom (the new phone).
If we make it back into town again before we leave and that original store is open, I am still going to try to get a replacement for my Orange phone so that I will have two working phones. The Safaricom one works well on Ol Pejeta where I am (so I will actually be able to call for help if I get stuck in the field) but has no reception at Mpala where I will be for the last week. So if I can get my Orange phone fixed to use at Mpala that would be great.

I have also been seeing some cool hybrid behavior. I emailed my advisor to give him an update and he seems very pleased with my work. He said I am getting great data and with a little luck we may be able to get a paper out in the fall-- which would be awesome.

So, according to my mother, my last post sounded like I was really upset and did not know how to deal with problems, haha. Sorry if it came off this way! I'm am not that upset... everything is still good. I was just venting and sharing details of how things usually (don't) work around here.

I can already tell that at the end of my two months here, when people ask me "How was Kenya?" my reply will be: "It was awesome! There were so many little headaches: nothing worked right, you have to wait forever, the roads are terrible, things are not at all efficient.... but come on, I was surrounded by animals and amazing views, and I learned so much. I got to sit out on the open Plain and watch zebra all day and see cheetah and lions at night. And now I can consider myself pretty comfortable with things I was not before coming here: driving stick, driving 4-wheel-drive and offroad, changing a tire, a little bit of Swahili (which I hope to learn a lot more of). I also feel so much more prepared to start thinking about and working on a PhD dissertation, because I see what is feasible and how things really run here.

The problems are all starting to get worked out. Lisa and I have been going out together in my car the past couple of days. And while we each get less done than we would alone, we are still being somewhat productive. Today was pretty good, we got a fair amount done. They also took Lisa's car up to the workshop today and it appears to be fixed as they just brought it back! Tomorrow we are going to drop my car off to be looked at while we drive her car into town to get my phone fixed. So hopefully that will all go well and we will be back to fully functioning shape by Wednesday.

The research is also going well. I made some interesting observations today, but I will save that for a later post.
Oh, and all the Earthwatch volunteers just got here. So the place is now full and will no doubt be less quiet than the past few days. I'll have to go meet them all at dinner in a few minutes. I hope everyone is doing well back in the states (or wherever you are in the world at this current moment).

Nothing ever runs smoothly

Oh problems....

First, for those that have mentioned it-- this blog website does not let you copy and paste from Word. Yes, I have thought about typing up my entries ahead of time when not connected to the internet and then just pasting them in to save my internet time, but it does not work. Apparently there is some circuitous way to go from Word to Notepad to trying to paste it in this site... but I don't really want to take the time to figure that out. So I will just stick with typing directly here, even though it takes time and means I make fewer posts.

And now on to other problems. So Thursday night (after we got back from town) my cell phone stopped working. It just shut itself off even though I thought it still had battery. Oh well, the battery must be dead- I'll just charge it. Well I plug it in and it won't charge. I try Lisa's charger, since we have the same phone-- still nothing. Great- I bet the part inside my phone where the charge plugs in is not making a good connection. My next idea: since we have the same phone, lets put my battery in Lisa's phone to charge it, then we can put it back in mine so I will at least be able to use it until we can manage to get into town and have it looked at. So we do this, I put it back in my phone, turn it on, it says it has full battery, but almost immediately shuts itself off again. I turn it back on, it shuts itself off again. There is definitely something wrong here. It won't even stay on long enough for me to hit send to make a call. Which means if my car breaks down in the field I am stuck with no way to call for help. We will need to go into town to the place I bought the phone and ask for a replacement. We can't take my car, because it is missing one headlight and that is illegal to drive in town. So we will take the red car Blair was driving, that Lisa is now driving since Blair left on Friday.
Well... yesterday afternoon as Lisa was out in the field, she couldn't get the car to start. Luckily her cell phone is still working so she called control to come rescue her. 2 hours later... they finally send someone. Apparently they had a car available to go get her, but no one who could drive it. They had to wait and find a guy to come drive the car to go pick her up. It seems there is something wrong with the exhaust and the car will not start. So we need to get them to tow it to Kamok to be repaired-- but today is Sunday and no one will be around. They all go to church on Sunday. So we will have to wait til Monday for them to work on it.

In the meantime, Lisa and I will just drive around together... which actually works out well because I have a working car (for now) and she has a working cell phone. Hopefully the car will be fixed by Tuesday morning and we can drive it into town to get my phone fixed. My car also has problems- it has been making a weird noise that sounds like there is something wrong with the exhaust on it too- so I also hope it does not die before we can get Lisa's car back. We we pick up hers, we can drop mine off to be looked at.

So that is the state of things at the moment. Both of us driving around together means we get less work done, but at least we will be together if something else goes wrong. It is just Lisa and I here at the research center right now. Everyone else has left. But tomorrow a bunch of Earthwatch volunteers come for 2 weeks, so it will be quite busy soon enough. Because they are short on space, they are putting a second bed in one of the really big bandas and Lisa and I will move in together to free up our two rooms for earthwatch people. There is also a guy named Chayant coming in a couple weeks. He is one of Dr. Rubenstein's collaborator's students in Illinois somewhere that is coming to work out a computer barcode system for identifying all the zebra. He may or may not be sharing our banda as well, haha. But it is only for 5 days or so.

Yes, I'm still alive

Hi everyone. Sorry for the long delay in posting. Things have been busy here- working away. And I am still trying to save my internet time.

First up, a wildlife photo for the day. This is from last week sometime of 7 giraffes all drinking from the water trough together. When they pull their heads out they spray water on each other.

In other news, Robin left on Sunday to head back to Nairobi with his dad and then back to the UK to finish up his masters. Hopefully we will see him again some day soon, maybe back here in Kenya. His parents will be in Nairobi for another 2 years. Also Blair leaves today (Friday, July 2) in just an hour or two, which will be sad. She has been here 3 full months though and is ready to get back. Lisa and I will be here together for another month. Dan is saying now he want us to stay til July 27th before going to Mpala for my last 2 weeks or so. Then I fly home Aug 7.

Yesterday we went for a Sundowner for Blair's last night and on the way back we came upon a pride of 14 lions! Just right on the road in front of us. Some of them just sat there next to our car for a little while. It was pretty cool to see that many together.

Other than that I have been working away. Going out everyday searching for hybrids and recording all of their behaviors and interactions. I have seen 21 individuals now, all but 3 of them. Hopefully getting some good data.

Ok time for another update!

So Saturday we went into town to shop for groceries and had lunch at that restaurant Trout Tree-- and it is pretty cool. It is literally a restaurant in a tree. It is even two stories, which is crazy! We sat on the top level to eat. There are usually monkeys in the tree that hang out while you are eating too, but we didn't see any that day. I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures.

Then we headed from town to Mpala for the night for Dr. Rubenstein's 60th birthday party. And it was a really good party. There were lots of people (I think I heard 60) and lots of wine. After dinner there was a huge cake shaped and decorated like the Princeton crest. Dan seemed really excited as he oped his presents. Then afterwards, most of the undergrads and grad students headed back down to the tented camp where we were staying for an after-party dance party around the fire pit. The tented camp is really cool. Above is a pic of the tent we stayed in. It looks kind of small in the pic, but there are three beds in there with room in the middle. And in lots of ways it is actually nicer than my banda at Ol Pejeta. It is totally contained, so no bugs get in, and the mattress was really nice. Plus all the tents are right on the river so you have a great view. The only downside is no running water, so there is a latrine and bucket showers. There is a nice mess tent with a long table and lots of chairs where meals are served and then there are 6 or more tents spread out on either side along the river. The fire pit is a big round stone one, with a raised bench all around that we bring cushions to. You can fit alot of people. Blair said the students have often talked about filling it with water and turning it into a giant hot tub. I don't think it would really be doable- but would be awesome if it was ever accomplished. I got to meet more new people which was also nice.

Sunday we headed back to Ol Pejeta to resume work. Dr. Rubenstein might be coming here on Friday to check in on our progress-- after he gets done with all of his meetings with the board of trustees at Mpala. Days have been getting pretty routine around here-- well as much as they can for being in Kenya! I go out everyday and drive around trying to find a hybrid, then watch it for a few hours. Yesterday we got really close to two cheetah again and took more pics. I had to stop in the middle of the road the other day to let a family of 10 or more elephants cross in front of me. Pretty standard now... but still awesome. Things are going well I think. The research is coming along. No more car problems so far, although I am still trying to buy a new tube for my tire that was temporarily repaired. Someone is supposed to be going to town today and I gave them money and asked them to get one for me. When I stop to think about it, I've only been here 2 1/2 weeks. In some ways it seems like I've been here longer. I don't know if two months will start to seem like forever by the end or not. It hasn't gotten old yet though :)

Everything runs slower on Kenya time

Sorry for the delay since my last post. I am trying to save my internet time and I think updating this uses up a lot of it.

So I had my first flat tire yesterday. It actually probably happened the evening before as I was driving home from the field. But I didn't have time to change it then because we were heading out to see the hyena den at dusk. We saw I think 5 adults and then a bunch of puppies popped their heads out of the den! Adult hyenas are not very cute... but hyena puppies are. By the time we got back from seeing them we were already late for dinner and it was almost dark.
So in the morning I changed the tire and put the spare on (yes I can do it by myself now!) and headed to Kamok to get the puncture repaired. Kamok, by the way, is the fuel/mechanic/butcher station in one corner of the Conservancy property... where you can have your car repaired, get more fuel, and buy steaks all in one convenient location. I had just been there 2 days before to get more fuel and have my oil topped off. And as I have learned by now, nothing goes quickly in Kenya. If you need something done, expect to wait. First, it takes 45 minutes to get to Kamok. Once I got there, I spent 45 minutes waiting for oil because the guy who had the key had gone out for a bit??? Then I spent another 15 minutes waiting for someone to come over and give me more fuel.

So yesterday I get to Kamok early in the morning and tell them my tire has a puncture that needs repaired. They do this a lot, so it shouldn't take too long. Well, it turns out that the puncture in my tire is not on any surface of the tube, but in the valve. They do a temporary repair job (which of course takes three times as long), but say it is not reliable and I will need to buy a new tube to really fix it. The only place to get a new tube is in town (Nanyuki). Going into town takes an hour and is always an ordeal, so I am not feeling too excited about this. Or, he says they can order one. Yes, please do that I say. Well I heard back today via a message through someone else that it appears they are not ordering a tube and I need to go buy one myself. Erg! At least we are planning to go to town Saturday anyway-- for lunch at this restaurant called Trout Tree... which gets its name because it is apparently a restaurant in a tree, like a big treehouse, and they farm their own trout. I don't really like fish, but I'm told they also have steak and chocolate cake! After that we will head to Mpala for Dr. Rubenstein's birthday party. He gets in just that afternoon and is turning 60, so it should be a good party.

Oh, and I almost forgot. After dinner last night we decided to go for a night game drive to try to find a leopard (Robin is desperate to see one). I don't think I have mentioned yet, but there is now a 5th person staying at the research center with us-- this guy Micheal who is a wildlife documentary filmmaker. He has some of the craziest stories... I will have to write them all down and post them sometime. Anyway, he has been here a lot before because he does a whole series on the running of this place showing how they manage a wildlife reserve. He seems to know lots of little spots we had not found yet and took us to places he has seen big game in the past. We did not see a leopard, sadly, but did see
1. a female lion eating a baby buffalo 2. about 20 or more hyenas in a den on a different plain 3. a mother lion and two young cubs 4. and finally, two big male lions just sitting in the grass right by our car.
It was dark, so I did not get any pictures, but it was a pretty good night of sightings.

Sundowner

We decided to have a sundowner last night... where you drive out to a cool spot and have a few drinks while watching the sunset. So we all hopped in Robin's car and went to a spot by the river with some Tuskers (Kenyan beer). The sun sets a little before 7 here, so we left at 6 to get there and find a spot to sit on a fallen tree. Here's a pic (L to R): Blair, Lisa, and Robin

Earlier that day as I was driving back from the field, the stupid blind elephant was in the middle of the road and I did not was to suprise him and get trampled, so I just had to park and wait for him to decide to walk away.

Wednesday evening right after my last post, as Robin and I were sitting at camp, we got a call from Blair saying they had spotted and were watching 5 cheetahs on Zebra Plain. So Robin and I hopped in his Land Rover to drive out there and join them. And wow, even though I guess it has had a lot of problems... his Land Rover is nice. So much better than the cars Blair and I are driving. It is huge too. So anytime we want to drive somewhere offroad or hard to get to to look for stuff we take Robin's car. There were three adult cheetahs together that we followed for awhile. At one point they stopped at this rock sign post at a junction in the road and all sprayed it at the same time. I have a really good pic of it, haha. Then their were two other, a mother and older cub (almost an adult but with still some neck fuzz) just down the road. On the drive back we really wanted to spot a leopard, but no luck. They are by far the hardest to find and see.

I also emailed Dan to tell him about my observations so far and ask if there is a better way to do the sampling. He seems pleased with my progress so far and gave me several helpful tips about what we are looking for and what is most important to note. He said to go ahead and do the scan sampling where every 5 minutes I just note the behavior of every individual in the group. I went back out yesterday and found the same female again and tried this sampling method instead.

Time to do some actual work

So today I went out on my own to start to get some actual data. I woke up pretty early, had just some fruit for breakfast and drove to Londru Plain in the Western sector. Happily I found a hybrid after not too long of drive and parked myself to start observing him. Dr. Rubenstein sent me an undergrad thesis a former student had done on these hybrids a few years ago, so for now I am just trying to follow her methods. Rosemary didn't really show me any techniques, and Dan just briefly mentioned what he might want me to do, so I am kind of winging it.

I am focusing on time-budgets for now, which is where you watch a focal animal for a specific length of time (say 30 min or an hour) and record what behaviors it is doing continuously. So every time it switches from grazing to walking or vigilant to self-grooming, etc., you have to note the behavior and the time. Each new activity ends the previous one and at the end of the sample you calculate how long the animal spent on each activity. The problem is, when they are switching actions sometimes evey 4 or 5 seconds, it is really hard for one person to watch through binoculars, check the time, write it down, and find the animal again before it has moved on to the next activity. Plus I am also trying to take photos during all of this for identification of the hybrid and to document their place in the herd and things like that. It would be much easier if I could just call out the behaviors and have someone else write them and the times down. Blair uses either a voice recorder (and then transcribes everything later) or a computer program that logs the activities and times for you. The computer would be great, but it is hard to take out in the field with you. With the voice recorder you can be more accurate than writing things down as they happen, but the transcribing takes awhile apparently. I don't have the computer program or a voice recorder... what I really need is an assistant. But that is not going to happen this time around... so I might need to ask Dan if there is an alternate way to sample.

After I watched to first hybrid male for about an hour and half, he joined a herd where I noticed a second hybrid, a female, so I switched to watching her and did another time-budget focal sample. After that I came back for lunch and to enter the data into my computer before I forgot things or couldn't read my own handwriting anymore and got confused. I tried to go back out in the afternoon to the soutern sector, but there were hardly any animals out there today. There were a ton of baboons on the airstrip, but I only found a few zebra on Scott's Plain, and no hybrids. So now Robin and I are just catching up on the internet before dinner.

ergg...

I keep trying to upload pics of these cheetahs and it acts like it worked, but then they do not show up. So I guess I will have to try again tomorrow.

We saw them at 6:30 pm just after coming back from Mpala as the sun was setting. I also have pics of a baby elephant and loads of giraffes. And zebra of course.

It rained here yesterday and I got Twiga stuck in the mud. But I called Blair, she drove over and she and Lisa and I were able to just push it out. When they got to me they said they were impressed I made it as far as I did. So I don't feel as bad about getting stuck. Note to self: do not go down that road again after it has rained. There are several roads here that are just impossible when it rains, as I've learned. Other than that I am doing pretty well. I went out with Rosemary yesterday morning just to see some more of the roads. But tomorrow I will head out on my own and try to start collecting some data.

Cheetahs!!!

Today, I was 15 feet away from 3 cheetahs! They had apparently just finished a meal because they looked fat and one kept licking his paws. The other almost fell out of the tree he was sitting in when he stood up. They must be really used to the tourists here, because they just sat there as we drove our car right up to them and took pictures.


We went to Mpala today for almost the whole day to get a cart built for Lisa's predator simulation experiment. Mpala is the other, and main, research station where most of the Princeton people are. It is about an hour drive north of here. Blair and I are only at Ol Pejeta because that's where the hybrids are and because she is studying Hartebeest and there are none at Mpala. Mpala is a research center only (no tourists). There are more people there and it is more set up for research, but Ol Pejeta has better wildlife. When I met with Dan he said Lisa and I will probably go stay at Mpala in July a week or so after Blair leaves. So at least I know how to get there now, because I will probably have to drive us over there in July. Dan gets here on June 19, which is apparently also his 60th birthday. So they are having a party for him over at Mpala that we will probably go to (assuming they have 3 extra beds for us to spend the night because we can't drive back in the dark).

more pics

By request, here is a pic of the inside of my banda

Also, here is some wildlife for now : warthogs and buffalo (Hakuna matata!). More exciting ones to come later.

Here is Twiga!

I compressed the picture size and got it to load really fast this time. So I think that was my problem... I just need to make pictures smaller first.

So hopefully I can upload more now.

A couple other things I forgot to mention about my sweet ride is that it has no RPM gauge at all... and the speedometer does not work. So I have no idea how fast I am going at any time. And there is no indication for when to shift other than listening/feeling the engine. But I have done pretty well so far I think.

I went with Blair today when she took her car to get more gas, so I know where the place is now. It is in the far northwest corner of the property, up a hill. Once they get my account set up I will need to go get gas in the next few days before trying to go out to the field for a whole day.

I also just skyped with the parents and it actually works pretty well here. It was breaking up a few times when I was in my hut, but as soon as I carried my laptop outside it worked perfectly. So I was able to give them a little tour of camp with the webcam. Skype does use up a lot of internet MBs though so I don't want to use it too often. If anyone really wants to set up a call though, let me know. Also, if anyone feels like calling me on my new Kenyan cell phone, the number is 020-2642374. I know there is a way you can call a cell phone from skype, or you could always get an international calling card. But I will try to just keep updating this blog to keep you all in the loop. Feel free to email me too... jmschieltz@bama.ua.edu. I would love to hear from people!

And wow, while I am writing this, it just started pouring rain outside! I will be driving all around the property with Rosemary tomorrow, so I hope this doesn't mean the roads will be mud and we will get stuck! eep!

Safari-land

So yesterday was my first full day here at Ol Pejeta. After breakfast I took my vehicle out for a spin... Blair gave me a little refresher course, but I had remembered a lot from the summer in Idaho where I learned to drive stick shift. So hopefully I am good to go (knock on wood). My car is nicknamed Twiga, which is Swahili for giraffe, because when Blair took it out last summer she thought it looked just like a giraffe carcass they came across. I wanted to post a photo here... because the picture tells it all... but couldn't get it to load this morning. It seems trying to upload pictures uses up a lot of MB of my internet too, so I probably will not be posting many pics here because I don't want to use up my internet too soon. I may just wait and put the best pics here and all of them on facebook when I return in August.

So for now just picture this... It is a very old and well-worn Suzuki Sierra. Think old white (well off-white now from years of dirt and sun) jeep, 2 doors, vertical back door. There is only 1 head light, the windows do not roll up anymore, the backseat has been taken out because it fell out the back on a previous trip, and the passenger seat back does not stay up. It is an extremely loud and bumpy ride. But as long as it runs, I don't care. Apparently I should expect to have problems, though, before the summer is over. When I am out driving, if I get stuck in mud or a hole I am supposed to call control and tell them where I am on the conservancy and they will come get me unstuck. Blair said it is likely I will get a flat tire at some point that I need to learn to change. If anything breaks or it starts to malfunction, there is a shop on the property we take it to. We also have to drive a little ways to get fuel, and I have less than half a tank right now, so I can't take it out for a full day until I get more petrol. We are about to get more fuel for Blair now, but they have not set it up yet for my fuel to be put on the Princeton account, so I'm not sure when I will get more.

Yesterday morning I met with Rosemary... she is Kenyan and has been working as sort of Dan's assistant for the past several years monitoring the zebras here. She gave me a rough map of the conservancy and pictures of all 25 of the known hybrids with their ID numbers labeled. We are going to go out together tomorrow to drive around so I can learn the differnt plains, start to spot the hybrids, and learn how to do time-budgets and such.

Then yesterday afternoon Blair drove us around the eastern sector of the conservancy. Ol Pejeta was formerly divided by a long fence into the old western sector that was a game reserve and the eastern sector that was the tourist side. The fence has recently been taken down, but the eastern tourist side is still the better marked and traveled half. I have not been to the western side yet, but it is bigger and I'm told there are no signs at all there, where there are at least a few a major juntions on the easter side. There are about 10 main plains (5 on each half) that all have names... Oryx Plain, Zebra Plain, Serat Plain, etc. As we drove around I started to learn the roads and track them with the GPS that Dan gave me to bring. It was like a Safari-land adventure park... so many animals all around that you could just drive right by. I also spotted one hybrid already! It was a bachelor male in a large herd on the northmost plain, Serat Plain. Blair also tried to show me on the map which roads to avoid if it rains at all because she already gotten stuck there.

There is a masters student from Britian named Robin doing research here right now too, but he was gone for the past few days. He got back yesterday afternoon. His dad is a diplomat I think, so he has literally lived all over the world, but his parents live in Nairobi now, so they drove up with him. They are all really nice. He is also really attractive which is not a bad thing at all either... He is also younger than I was expecting when Blair described him. I think he is only 21 or 22.
His parents are staying for a couple days at Sweetwaters Tented Camp, one of the tourist places on Ol Pejeta, before heading back to Nairobi. He has a really nice looking huge Land Rover, but I guess it has had all sorts of problems and been taken in to the shop too many times to count. They just finished fixing it again, so he is hoping it will last for the next 3 weeks before he leaves at the beginning of July (same time Blair leaves). So my car looks like crap, but if it can last me for 2 months with no (or minor) problems, I will take that over a constantly breaking Land Rover.

Our meals here are at 8am, 1pm, and 7pm. We have to buy the food, but then there is a cook here to prepare the meals. We bought a little bit of food in Nanyuki on Friday and then Robin and his parents brought a bunch for the next week or so. Our current cook is an older guy who only speaks Swahili and is not the best chef. But I guess there is woman who is a better cook that is coming back in a few days.

First morning

It is my first morning here at Ol Pejeta. I woke up about an hour ago at 6am and saw the sun come up. Here are a few first pictures.

The Research Center on Ol Pejeta where I am staying (there is also a swanky main house where the tourists stay, but I haven't been up there yet to see what it looks like)

My hut-- there are two rooms in this one. I'm on the left and Lisa is on the right

Kenya!!!

Oh man... so much has happened since I last wrote. I feel like I can write an essay about each of the past 3 days, but I will try to give you the abridged version.

Day 1 -- Wed becomes Thurdsay
So the flight from JFK to Dubai was actually pretty awesome. Emirates airline is great, I highly recommend it. Even though it was 13 hours, I didn't sleep at all and wasn't tired. Each seat has a TV console with a long list of New movies and TV shows to watch for free. You can just pick whatever you want. So I watched 5 movies on the way over! I was too entertained to sleep. I saw The Young Victoria, Up in the Air, both Twilight movies, and Fame. When you get on the plane they hand out hot towels and then recollect them before you even take off. They also pass out little cases with socks, a travel toothbrush, and a facemask for sleeping. We got dinner, a snack and breakfast on the flight. I wasn't even tired and we arrived at Dubai at 8am their time the next day.

Day 2 -- Thursday
Then we flew from Dubai to Nairobi. This flight was only 5 hours. The TV screens this time didn't let you pick movies, but they had several channels with movies playing that you could turn to. So I saw How to Train your Dragon and the end of Extraordinary Measures. We landed in Nairobu around 3pm. We went through the line to buy Visas and then down to get our bags. One of the girls in the group ended up having to gate check one of her carry-ons at JFK and it didn't seem to make it to Nairobi. So we had to wait around for awhile while she filled out a lost bag report. Then there was a van that took us to ICIPE --(some research center for Insect Physiology) in Nairobi. It is a whole compound with a guest center with pretty nice bedrooms. We didn't actually get there until 7pm though, because Nairobi traffic is terrible!!! You would think in the capital city the roads would be better... but everything seemed in a perpetual state of construction or disrepair. Some parts of the road were concrete but most were dirt and there were no lanes on the road. So whenever the road narrowed cars were just cutting each other off left and right and trying to merge with no organization. It took us I think 2 hours to get to ICIPE... I don't know exactly how far away it is from the airport, but not that far.
When we finally got to ICIPE we had dinner, then I showered (which felt awesome after all the plane rides), and checked my email. They had wireless in the lobby. The shower had hot water, but when you pulled the knob up for the water to come out of the shower head (which was not on a holder just laying in the tub), only half of the water came through... and only the cold half. At this point I was finally getting tired for the first time in over 24 hours, so I went to bed at around 9pm Kenya time. So it was nice to just already be on Kenya time and not have any jet lag to worry about. It was also nice to be able to lay flat to sleep for the first time in over 24 hours.

Day 3 -- Friday
We woke up at ICIPE and had breakfast. Two cars were supposed to pick us up at 8am to drive us to Ol Pejeta (the Conservancy where I and one other girl Lisa are staying) and Mpala (where everyone else is staying). Ol Pej and Mpala are about an hour apart but both are ~4 hours from Nairobi. So we were supposed to get there in time for lunch and shopping in Nanyuki, the closes town. Well, it seems things never go as planned and you should just expect delays and problems.
First, the cars didn't actually come until 9am. One nice suprise though was that Blair and Stephanie, two of Dr. Rubensteins grad students came along to greet us. Blair is also staying at Ol Pejeta. She has been here since April 2 and is staying til July 2. We got on the road, but shortly into our drive, one of the cars started having brake problems. Apparently, Blair told us, this same car had problems on their drive down to Nairobi the day before. It was over-heating and they had to wait over 2 hours for it to be fixed and they didn't get to Nairobi until late. Well we waited almost three hours while they worked on it again. We just ate lunch where we were because the car wasn't ready until 1pm. At this point we were starting to worry that we wouldn't get to Nanyuki in time to shop before things closed at 5pm. But we did make it just in time. I bought a cell phone to use if my car gets stuck or something goes wrong since I will be driving around the bush by myself for most of my research. Which brings me to my next point... the car they have for me is a stick shift and the steering wheel is on the right because they drive on the left side of the road here. I stressed out a bit, but I am confident I will master it and be ok. Blair is going to give me a driving lesson/refresher in the morning. I also bought a modem for my computer (which I am using right now) that you just plug in to the USB port on your phone and it runs the internet off one of the cell phone providers. You can just buy more minutes to add to the cell phone or MB to add to the modem.

After shopping we finally made it to Ol Pejeta around 7pm. A much longer day than originally planned. But on the way in I have already seen baboons, zebra, buffalo, gazelles, and a lion! Oh, and there is an elephant outside of my hut right now!!! There is supposed to be an electric fence around the huts to keep the elephants out, but I guess there is one blind elephant that just comes right up. They can be really dangerous, so we just need to know when he is here and pay attention.
That's probably enough updating right now. I will try to write more, and hopefully post some pics, tomorrow.

@ Princeton

Here's a quick update from Princeton...
I made it here, checked in with the grad school, and just met Dr. Rubenstein's assistant Amy in person for the first time. I am set up in a little office right now using the wireless internet while Dr. Rubenstein is at the commencement ceremony. I will meet with him when he gets back. The weather is really nice here, 75 and sunny.

I am awake right now, but considering I woke up at 4:15 am to get on a plane in Dayton, I'll probably start getting tired really early today. I have a backpack and my laptop as carry-ons and then most of my stuff is in a duffle bag I check on the plane. The duffle bag is on wheels and is only 43lbs, but lugging it from the train station around campus to the grad school office and then to Eno Hall, it felt a lot heavier. At least I won't have to carry it around the airport tomorrow since it will be checked again.

Tomorrow, off to Dubai...

Move-Out Disaster

So after a somewhat eventful day on Saturday, me and my belonging have made it back to Ohio. Here is the detailed story:

Mom, Dad, and Sarah arrived on Friday afternoon. We had a nice goodbye party with people in Tuscaloosa that evening and then went to bed to prepare to pick up and load the Uhaul truck in the morning. Well, everything did not go as planned....
We were supposed to be able to pick up the Uhaul by 10:30 am-- "guaranteed". We kept calling the place we were supposed to pick it up from and kept being told that the truck had not been returned to them yet. 10:30 goes by... 11 goes by... We try calling the 1-800 number for Uhaul and are getting nowhere. You can't understand the people on the phone, they are rude, keep putting us on hold, tell us they will call back and then never do. We finally hear back from the place we were supposed to get the truck from... they have tracked it down. But wait... it turns out that truck was (accidentally?) returned to a different location and then rented out to someone else!!! And apparently they have no other trucks to give us. At this point we start to panic and start to call any other truck renters around. Budget says they have a truck out that is supposed to be returned later that day that we would be able to have... so while we continue to try to deal with Uhaul, we hope Budget may work as a backup.

At this point we decide to just drive to the main Uhaul place in Tuscaloosa to try to talk to someone in person instead of calling the (completely inept) people at the 1-800 number again. We get there and see at least 3 or 4 trucks parked on the lot. But when we go inside we are told those are for in-town transport only and are not allowed to be driven one-way to Ohio. We explain the situation to the guy at the desk and he trys to get on the phone with the head office at the 1-800 number also. After what seems like an hour, he says the only truck they have available is in a little town over 60 miles away... that we would have to drive ourselves to go pick up (we told them they needed to get someone to drive the truck to Tuscaloosa, and they said that was not allowed)... and they would only take $50 off of our bill. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything in Tuscaloosa until Monday! Absolutely ridiculous.

1. I guess our guaranteed reservation was not guaranteed at all...
2. Us having to drive an hour and a half each way to go pick up another truck is unacceptable... and it was already 4 hours late at this point. Another 3 hours would have wiped out the entire day, and we still needed to pack the truck once we got it.
3. The $50 off would barely cover the gas to go pick up this other truck.
4. We had to get a truck that day to get my stuff home so that I can get on a plane to Africa. Waiting til Monday was absolutely not an option.
5. They didn't seem to care about any of this and were totally unwilling to do anything to help

Luckily, at that moment we got a call from the Budget truck guy saying the truck they were expecting to be returned would be back in 5 minutes and we could come get it right away. So we promplty gave up on and left UHaul. The people who rented us the Budget truck were so helpful and professional. We were able to pick it up and get it loaded with time to spare. So moral of the story... Uhaul never again, Budget truck all the way

We left Tuscaloosa early Sunday morning. Mom and Dad drove the truck, I drove my car and Sarah rode with me to hold my cat for the drive :) He was very well behaved. He slept on Sarah's lap most of the first half-- although he kept wanting to climb on me or jump down by my feet, but Sarah kept him out of the way. Then the second half of the drive he went to the back seat, and sat on top of his litter box to sleep and stare out the window the whole time without making a sound. We got back around 5:30pm EST and unloaded everything.

Today I have been making sure I have everything ready for Kenya. Tomorrow early morning I will get on a plane to Newark and take the train down to Princeton. I have to sign in and fill out some forms at the grad school as soon as I get there before commencement starts at 11am. Then I will meet with Dr. Rubenstein to hear about what I will be researching. All I really know so far is that I will be studying hybrid zebra behavior and have read one paper they published on these hybrids. I got an email today saying the plan is to get me a small 4x4 to drive around the conservancy to look for and follow the zebras! My immediate thought was... I hope it is not a stick shift. I sort of know how to drive one, barely. And I wonder if I will be driving around alone or with someone else. I really don't want to stall out or get stuck or lost in the middle of the Kenyan wild. So I am a little nervous now. Dr. Rubenstein said he would tell me more tomorrow when we meet.
I will spend the night with one of the undergrads going on the trip tomorrow night at Princeton. Then the group of 8 of us leave Wed at 6:30 am to take a van to JFK. Amy (Dr. Rubenstein's assistant) sent me everyone's travel schedule, and I guess Dr. Rubenstein is actually not coming to Kenya until 2 weeks after us. Most of the undergrads will leave to head back to the states in July sometime, but there is one girl on the same flight back as me Aug 7.

So that was a very long post. Unless I have time tomorrow in Princeton, the next update will probably be from Kenya!

Moving...

Mom, dad, and best friend Sarah get to Tuscaloosa tomorrow to help me move all of my sh*t back to Ohio for the summer. I haven't seen them since Christmas, so I'm excited for them all to get here! We will have a little goodbye party tomorrow night with my friends/co-workers, pack up the Uhaul on Sat, and drive to Dayton on Sunday.
I then have Monday to do any last minute shopping and drop my cat off at his cat-sitters' house before flying to Princeton early Tuesday. Poor Magic, I don't think he has any idea what is going on yet. He will be on a long car ride followed by 2 different houses in 2 days. I hope he doesn't freak it. I don't want all the travel and change to traumatize him. And I don't want him to think I am abandoning him :(

Last day of work tomorrow...

2 weeks

2 weeks from today I will be headed to Princeton to check in as a new, early-arrival grad student and meet up with the group before heading to Kenya. Then 2 weeks from tomorrow I will be on a plane to Dubai. Exciting!!!! Which reminds me... I need to start taking my malaria pills next week.

The day I will be at Princeton, June 1, is my 24th birthday (when did I get so old?)... and also happens to be their commencement, so it will be pretty busy on campus. I will have like 30 minutes after I get off the train from the airport to go fill out all required forms at the grad school before they all leave to go watch commencement. It's a tight schedule, but since that is the only day I will be on campus, the woman at the grad school was really nice to meet with me during such a busy time. Hopefully it will all work out fine.

I think I have pretty much everything I need for Kenya now. I have packed most of my things at my house in Alabama to get ready to take it back to Ohio too. I am sort of at the point where I can't do much more because everything not packed I still need to use for the next 1.5 weeks. The parents and I are throwing a going-away party the last Friday night I am town. If anyone reading this will be in Tuscaloosa May 28 and I forgot to send you the invitation, please come! Anyone is welcome.

Plane Ticket Booked

So I officially have a plane ticket to Kenya as of today!

Leaving June 2 from JFK on Air Emirates flying to Dubai (!) and then from Dubai to Nairobi, Kenya. I am kind of excited about going to Dubai even though I won't get to see anything outside of the airport. I have always wanted to go there. Maybe on a future trip I can try to stay over for a day or two in Dubai. I thought we would be changing planes in Europe somewhere, but I guess this flight was cheaper. The only downside is, the flight to Dubai is 13 hours long. That's a long time in a small seat. But then from Dubai to Kenya is only another 5 hours. Going through Europe would have broken it up more evenly (two 8-hour flights), but that's ok. I'm just happy to be going! And I'm not paying for the ticket so I don't really get to decide, haha.

My parents (and Sarah!) are driving down to Alabama on May 28 to help me pack and move everything to Ohio on May 30. Then I have one day to rest/finish packing before flying to Newark Tue morning June 1 (which also happens to be my birthday :) ). The flight to Dubai leaves JFK early on June 2, so I figured I better get to Princeton the day before to avoid any chance of being delayed and missing my flight. So... I will get to Princeton on June 1, hopefully spend the night with one of the undergrads going on the trip, and then leave with the whole group to head to JFK the next morning, June 2.

I get back to the states 2 months later on Aug 8. I will be flying through Dubai again, back to JFK, then taking a shuttle to the Newark airport where I have a direct flight back to Dayton. So if anyone wants to come meet me in Dayton, I get back at 6pm on Aug 8.

It's getting close!!!!

Headed to Kenya

So I decided to create a blog to document my adventures and misadventures in Kenya this summer. Friends and family can check in to see what I am up to half way around the world and hear about my research. I will also try to include lots of cool pictures of wildlife.

For those of you who didn't yet know, I have been accepted and decided to attend Princeton University this fall 2010 to get my PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. So come September 1, I will be moving to New Jersey for at least the next 5 years. Before that though, I will be headed to central Kenya this summer with my new Princeton advisor, Dr. Daniel Rubenstein, and several undergrads to begin research early. I leave the first week of June and return the first week of August. I will be staying at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy and working on a project on hybrid zebra behavior. I don't know any specifics of the project yet, so I will update on that when I learn more. If anyone wants to learn more about where I will be, the Conservancy has a website you can check out:
http://olpejetaconservancy.org/
Here is a link also to Dr. Rubenstein's website:
http://www.princeton.edu/~dir/index.html

When I return, I hope to continue to update this site with posts about my new life as a grad student at Princeton. I don't know yet if this will turn into a place to share progress on my research, talk about my daily life, or just vent about frustrations. For now, off to Africa!!!